I spent two years reporting this feature for Washingtonian magazine, about a group of people who were harassed for nearly 12 years by a racist troll who happened to be a State Department employee. Over that period, the victims — staffers at the Arab-American Institute in DC — feared for their lives and suffered PTSD symptoms. But due to bureaucratic enabling and gaps in hate-crimes enforcement, they were helpless to stop what many believed could be another mass shooting event. (Image by Jeff Eakins for Washingtonian.)

Hate isn’t illegal, but death threats such as “The only good Arab is a dead Arab” are, and Bristol knew he couldn’t betray emotion in the interview, lest he risk jeopardizing any part of the confession. But by this point, he had spent more than 100 hours interviewing Syring’s victims and he was suppressing revulsion. “This is a world that we don’t visit often, the hatemongers,” he says. “It’s not a pleasant place to be.” It was galling to hear Syring admit—with no sense of guilt or regret—that he was their troll. “There was no nervousness on his part,” Bristol remembers, “no reluctance.” Syring couldn’t see what he had done wrong.